TO THOMAS PARK, ESQ.
Weston-Underwood, March 10, 1792.
Dear Sir,—You will have more candour, as I hope and believe, than to impute my delay to answer your kind and friendly letter to inattention or want of a cordial respect for the writer of it. To suppose any such cause of my silence were injustice both to yourself and me. The truth is, I am a very busy man, and cannot gratify myself with writing to my friends so punctually as I wish.
You have not in the least fallen in my esteem on account of your employment,[632] as you seemed to apprehend that you might. It is an elegant one, and, when you speak modestly, as you do, of your proficiency in it, I am far from giving you entire credit for the whole assertion. I had indeed supposed you a person of independent fortune, who had nothing to do but to gratify himself; and whose mind, being happily addicted to literature, was at full leisure to enjoy its innocent amusement. But it seems I was mistaken, and your time is principally due to an art which has a right pretty much to engross your attention, and which gives rather the air of an intrigue to your intercourse and familiarity with the muses than a lawful connexion. No matter: I am not prudish in this respect, but honour you the more for a passion, virtuous and laudable in itself; and which you indulge not, I dare say, without benefit to yourself and your acquaintance. I, for one, am likely to reap the fruit of your amours, and ought, therefore, to be one of the last to quarrel with them.
You are in danger, I perceive, of thinking of me more highly than you ought to think. I am not one of the literati, among whom you seem disposed to place me. Far from it. I told you in my last how heinously I am unprovided with the means of being so, having long since sent all my books to market. My learning accordingly lies in a very narrow compass. It is school-boy learning somewhat improved, and very little more. From the age of twenty to twenty-three, I was occupied, or ought to have been, in the study of the law. From thirty-three to sixty I have spent my time in the country, where my reading has been only an apology for idleness, and where, when I had not either a magazine or a review in my hand, I was sometimes a carpenter, at others a bird-cage maker, or a gardener, or a drawer of landscapes. At fifty years of age I commenced an author. It is a whim that has served me longest and best, and which will probably be my last.
Thus you see I have had very little opportunity to become what is properly called—learned. In truth, having given myself so entirely of late to poetry, I am not sorry for this deficiency, since great learning, I have been sometimes inclined to suspect, is rather a hindrance to the fancy than a furtherance.
You will do me a favour by sending me a copy of Thomson's monumental inscription. He was a poet, for whose memory, as you justly suppose, I have great respect; in common, indeed, with all who have ever read him with taste and attention.
Wishing you heartily success in your present literary undertaking and in all professional ones, I remain,
Dear sir, with great esteem,
Sincerely yours,
W. C.
P. S. After what I have said, I will not blush to confess, that I am at present perfectly unacquainted with the merits of Drummond,[633] but shall be happy to see him in due time, as I should be to see any author edited by you.